Monday, February 01, 2016

The Paradoxical Origin of Climate Alarmism

Three feet of snow on the streets of New York and Washington is mocking global warming alarmists. The natural sciences tell us that the alarmists got everything wrong: anthropogenic carbon release is not dangerous or even harmful, but extremely beneficial. 15% of the world’s agricultural production is due to the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the air. What’s more, the global mean temperature has not been increasing for 19 years, and the slight warming expected from the emission of the infra-red absorbing gases is expected to be beneficial in itself. And contrary to the alarmists’ claims, ocean water is alkaline, not acidic. See this short summary of science for more. Listing all the scientific errors made by the alarmists would take many pages, not to mention their logical fallacies, economic delusions, civic blunders, etc. So how did it happen that such a worthless agenda became so powerful? In large degree, it’s because it was worthless!

The weakness (or absence) of scientific support behind climate alarmism became its political strength.

Normally, political issues are real, in the sense that they represent real problems or real conflicts in society. Real issues -- drug addiction, poverty, illness, or abortion -- allow people to express different views or to take different sides. But the issue that gave birth to climate alarmism is different: the alleged problem (possible harm or danger from carbon dioxide emissions) simply does not exist. Most people are not interested in imaginary problems, and quite a few scientists, statesmen, and journalists came to the correct conclusion that the carbon dioxide/global warming/climate change problem did not exist. Naturally, they did not participate in research or discussion on this topic, which allowed those who believed in the alleged problem to monopolize the topic. And the more strongly somebody believed, the stronger his or her voice was in the discussion. This happened even before they gain enough power and money to chase away sceptics or buy supporters.

Let me clarify a few points before I get into the history. Climate change is real. The climate change problem is not. Scientists have opposed climate alarmism from the beginning to protect the integrity of science. Some of them recognized the alarmism as a problem in itself. Good, competent people passed on addressing the alleged climate problem because they were not convinced of its significance, especially compared with other changes happening in the world. That said, even if all the reasonable scientific uncertainties were resolved in favor of alarmism, and even if we accepted many of the alarmist fallacies, that still wouldn’t justify the alarm.

It all started in the 1970s, when the possibility of global warming from anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide was seriously addressed as a potential concern. At that time there were significant scientific uncertainties regarding the issue, so some scientists concluded that some concern was justified, while others concluded that it was not. The government tried to convene a group of top scientists to consider this potential concern. But top scientists can choose what to work on, so there was considerable self-selection: the concerned scientists were overrepresented in the discussion, while the skeptical views were underrepresented. One result of this self-selection: in 1979 both the Charney and MacDonald (JASON) committees, apparently working independently of each other, arrived at the same climate sensitivity value, almost double the number that Guy Callendar calculated in 1938. And Callendar's result was more accurate!

But so far, so good -- no real harm done, just an interesting social dynamic that can be recognized only in hindsight. Scientists who expressed concerns did so because they developed or accepted theories exaggerating the possible negative consequences of CO2. This led to a one-sided selection of the science as well: more alarming climate theories, models, and scenarios received broader consideration than non-alarming ones. Despite this adverse selection and exaggerated estimate of the climate sensitivity, neither committee sounded alarm or recommended that the government take any action but to continue research.

Then, for no good reason, Congress authorized the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee (CDAC), and tasked it with a comprehensive evaluation of the possible dangers from CO2 release. Naturally, CDAC had to consider (or even develop) the most alarming theories and scenarios. In 1983 CDAC delivered what became known as Nierenberg Report, advising “concern, not panic” and rejecting climate alarmism once again.

Unfortunately, UN agencies and environmental NGOs (mostly of foreign origin) picked up the issue and started running with it. There was no shadow of good faith in the way in which they handpicked “experts” from the environmentalist movement and from the bottom of the scientific establishment, fishing for yes-men worldwide. These bottom-dwellers went on cherry picking not only the data, but even the physical effects. This was not hard, because the real scientists and those who cared to consult them were staying out of the topic, rather than opposing the alarmist agenda. As Richard Lindzen wrote in 1992: "As most scientists concerned with climate, I was eager to stay out of what seemed like a public circus." Cherry picking was made easier by the huge amounts of money lavished on climate science starting in the 1980s.

It might sound surprising today, but the alarmists announced "scientific consensus" as early as 1988, following the infamous Toronto Conference. After that, the intimidation and persecution of openly dissenting scientists started. From the same article by Lindzen:

"But in the summer of 1988 Lester Lave, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote to me about being dismissed from a Senate hearing for suggesting that the issue of global warming was scientifically controversial. I assured him that the issue was not only controversial but also unlikely. In the winter of 1989 Reginald Newell, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lost National Science Foundation funding for data analyses that were failing to show net warming over the past century. Reviewers suggested that his results were dangerous to humanity."

Thus, fear of retaliation buttressed the normal reluctance of competent scientists to engage with a non-existing problem. When Al Gore became Vice President in 1993, all hell broke loose, but that’s a story for another article.

It looks like the climate alarmists understood how lucrative the pursuit of imaginary problems could be for them. Many environmentalist scares started as similarly non-existent issues, which only became real (in the sense defined above) when lawmakers tried to address them. The proposed laws naturally affected the public, thus creating an opposition. In many cases the enviros won anyway, but at least there was a fight.

It seems like the climate alarmists learned from that experience, so they started proposing solutions so unrealistic that they were beyond sane discussion. One example is their crowning demand to keep future Earth temperature change below 2°C forever. Do they really think that humans control Earth’s temperature? At COP21, they went even further and tightened this "goal" to 1.5°C. Another example is the call to lower CO2 in the air to 350 ppm, down from the current 400 ppm. 350.org, one of the most visible alarmist organizations, took its name from this number. When the Senate rejected the Kyoto protocol before it was even signed (with a 95-0 vote), it removed this alleged problem from the table for some time, but let it keep its cloak of effective obscurity.

In the absence of any organized opposition, the alarmists were able to appoint an enemy at will. They selected fossil fuel corporations as the strawman target. Energy and oil companies have no more interest in opposing climate alarmism than anybody else, are forbidden from opposing it by laws and court decisions, suffer from negative public image, and present an attractive target for trial lawyers. The fate of British Petroleum (BP) following the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion is an illustration of how vulnerable our society is to political attacks on its energy suppliers.

Unlike climate change, climate alarmism is a problem, a large and underestimated social problem, not something confined to the energy sector. Its fingerprints are everywhere, from corruption of American universities and scientific institutions to the extreme political polarization. Trying to minimize economic damages is not enough - we should address the problem itself.

This short article contains firsthand witness testimony on how climate science was subverted by Climatism. Lindzen’s succinct analysis is still relevant today. If you want to read only one article on the origins of the climate hysteria, this is the one.

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To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant.

Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry.

The Catholic-Judeo U. S. Supreme Court

6 Roman Catholics and 3 Jews

Provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods

...our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, p.451.

The Fresh Air Fund

THE FRESH AIR FUND, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877. (Click on image to donate)

Sunset Calendar

Click on Picture for Sunset- Sunrise Calendar for your location.

Freedom

We do not have freedom because the Constitution gives it to us; The Creator gives us our rights. The Constitution was written to keep the government from taking our rights away. We have rights granted by God and not by men; such rights as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

THE HOLY BIBLE

The King James Version is in the public domain in the United States; you may copy and quote from it without restriction. The other Bibles at the Bible Gateway: (http://www.biblegateway.com), however, are not in the public domain, unless otherwise specified.

THE GREAT CONTROVERSY

(The Great Controversy), unveils the often unseen battle between Christ and Satan, and looks ahead to the day sin’s reign will end, and Jesus will rule as King of kings and Lord of lords.

THE SECRET TERRORISTS

"A secret terrorist organization has been working within to destroy America, its Constitution, and everything for which she stands"..(Click on pic)

The Enemy Unmasked

As one looks at the history of nations, from Babylon to Rome to America, it is evident that a Divine hand was protecting and guiding America..(Click on pic)

Foxe's Book of Martyrs

This book by John Foxe (1517 - 1587) is beyond doubt one of the great Christian classics in English- Read it on line (Click on Picture)

Fifty Years in The Church of Rome

The life story of Charles Chiniquy, who was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church for 25 years.

Earth's Final Hours

Click on image to read this book.

The Two Babylons

Where did the practices and beliefs of Roman Catholicism come from? In this scholarly classic, first published over eighty years ago, Alexander Hislop reveals that many Roman Catholic teachings did not originate with Christ or the Bible, but were adopted from ancient pagan Babylonian religion, and given Christian names. (Click on image to read online).

TOO LONG IN THE SUN

The book "Too Long in the Sun", traces pagan sun worship from the time of the Chaldeans, through the civilizations of the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Grecians, the Romans and right on through present day, documenting its influence upon modern day "Christianity."

ELLEN G. WHITE

The greatest want of the world is the want of men, --men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. -Education, p. 57. (1903)

Martin Luther

“The papacy is the seat of the true and real antichrist personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist."

Abraham Lincoln

I see a very dark cloud in our horizon. And that cloud is coming from Rome.

John Adams

"If ever an association of people deserved eternal damnation, on this earth and in hell, it is this society of Loyola." (1816)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

GENERAL MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE

It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country — the United States — are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated most of the wars in Europe.

Edmund Burke

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Luigi Desanctis

“In a country where there are Jesuits, they must either rule or the country must go to ruin… it is they who rule the world.”

GALILEO GALILEI

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Miguel de Cervantes

"Our greatest foes, and those we must chiefly combat, are within."

Frederick Douglass

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

Eugenio María de Hostos

"I wish that they will say: In that island (Puerto Rico) a man was born who loved truth, desired justice, and worked for the good of men." Hostos wrote his own epitaph.

Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.”

Arturo Alfonso (Arthur) Schomburg

"The modern school without systematic lectures turns out many graduates who lack retention. No sooner has the sound of the word left their teacher's lips, the subject has been forgotten"

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (Lord Acton)

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it."

Pastor Martin Niemöller

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

U.S.M.C.Major General Smedley Butler

“War is just a racket,” “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.” (Click on photo to read his book)

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

EDWARD R. MURROW

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

John F. Kennedy

“The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. ”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but morally treasonable to the American public."

W.E.B. DUBOIS

"Drunk with power, we (the U.S.) are leading the world to hell in a new colonialism with the same old human slavery, which once ruined us, to a third world war, which will ruin the world."

JOHN V. LINDSAY

There are men – now in power in this country – who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression as long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit.

HENRY FORD

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

MARCUS M. GARVEY

"We Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God -- God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the one God of all ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall worship him through the spectacles of Ethiopia."

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

ALAN BARTH

"The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state."

EUGEN WEBER

"Wolves are wolves even if you choose to pretend they are chickens."

Craig Hulet

Is it progress when a cannibal uses a knife and fork?

Charles Goyette

"Just lay your freedom at out our feet, and we'll take care of everything for you."

GEORGE SANTAYANA

"He Who Does Not Remember History Is Condemned To Repeat It"

GEORGE ORWELL

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

ALDOUS HUXLEY

"...Ecclesiasticism without Christianity, the discipline of a monastic rule, not for God's sake or in order to achieve personal salvation but for the sake of the State and for the greater glory and power of the demagogue turned leader - this was the goal for which the systematic moving of the masses was to lead" (Brave New World Revisited, Huxley, 44-45)

Richard Maybury

Washington... has become an alien city-state that rules America, and much of the rest of the world, in the way that Rome ruled the Roman Empire.

Frank Zappa

"The illusion of freedom [in America] will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."

Sinclair Lewis

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

Sabbath Commercial for Television

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfgNbEzJ7ZY&feature=player_embedded

James D. Standish, Esq.

"The United Nations can be a tool to advance the cause of religious freedom."

THE HOLY INQUISITON

"Remember The Inquisition; It won't be long before the fires are ignited all over again". Arsenio [2007]

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J.

“The fate of mankind, as well as of religion, depends upon the emergence of a new faith in the future.”

Hillary R. Clinton

"What difference, at this point, does it make?!” -- At congressional panel on the U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

Albert Pike

"To you, Sovereign Grand Instructors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st and 30th degrees: 'the Masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the LUCIFERIAN Doctrine. If Lucifer were not god, would Adonay (Jesus)... calumniate (spread false and harmful statements about) him?...Yes Lucifer is God..."

Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J.

In fact, the four hundred and fifty years of the Society's history have been a record of fruitful association with the laity, in which the Ignatian spirit has manifested itself in the Church in many forms, and it continues to do so with vigor today.

Barack H. Obama

"Those nations that refuse to meet their obligations will be isolated, and denied the opportunity that comes with international integration" @ Prague 4/8/10

Pat Robertson

"The time has come when we must lay aside minor points of doctrinal differences and focus on the centralization of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."

JIMMY CARTER

"The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion," Carter said. "As a traditional Baptist, I've always believed in separation of church and state and honoured that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one."

Dr. José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated."

Saul Alinsky

"Think globally, act locally"

Joseph Ratzinger

"The Pope enjoys, by divine institution, "supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls"

GEORGE W. BUSH

"Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."

WILLIAM J. LEVADA

"I'm past the deer-in-the-headlights phase,"

CHARLES EDWARD COUGHLIN

On this earth you must belong to the church militant or get the hell out of it. That's the right word. You're either with me or against me' There is no middle ground in this battle between Christ and the anti-Christ. If you step out of (the battle), you're worse than those boys who ran off to Norway, Sweden, those boys who deserted the government. You're deserters, rotten deserters.

ROBERT SCHULLER

"It is time for Protestants to go to the shepherd (the pope) and say, `What do we have to do to come home?'" Dr. Robert Schuller, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Sept. 19, 1987.

ADAM WEISHAUPT

Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery. The hankering of the mind is irresistible.

DAVID SPANGLER

No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation.

ZBIGNIEW BRZENZINSKI

Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen...

HENRY KISSINGER

"We will get a New World Order. We may not get it in our generation, but if we do not get it in our generation, we will get it in the next generation."